MISCELLANEOUS. FARRAR'S MANUAL OF THE CONSTITUTION. 3d EDITION.*. In the October number, 1867, of this review, we noticed at some length this book upon the publication of its first edition; we are now glad to welcome the third, as an evidence that a book so vigorous, able, and independent, is not likely to moulder on the shelves of obsolete or forgotten volumes. The importance of thorough philosophical discussion respecting the theory and principles of our system of government cannot be overestimated, and whoever brings to such an investigation ability, learning, positive convictions, and logical modes of thought, must render valuable service to political science. The venerable author of this book has seen no reason to modify, in his third edition, those advanced views of the scope and force of the Federal Constitution upon which we formerly commented. The body of the work remains substantially unchanged, except by the addition of a few footnotes in support and illustration of the text. In an appendix, however, he has thrown together some valuable suggestions upon various subjects which have grown in importance and interest since the first edition was published-among others on the suffrage as affected by the 14th Amendment; the position of the Rebel States; the law of impeachment; Executive power; the case of Andrew Johnson, &c. Without attempting a review of any por tion of the work, we may call attention to the position of the author, which he recurs to and maintains with his accustomed vigor, in various parts of the appendix, that the tribunal provided by the constitution for the final decision of all constitutional questions is not the Supreme Court (whose jurisdiction is limited to the determination of individual rights in litigated cases), but the High Court of Impeachment. "What Congress adjudge to be constitutional and expedient for them to enact they must of course adjudge it to be unconstitutional and illegal for any one subject to the law to impede or obstruct, * * * What is maladministration, misdemeanor, or misbehavior in office or out of office, "inability" to perform its duty, or want of "good behavior" which unfits for it, in fact what is law, and what is disobedience to law, Congress, in that High Court if not elsewhere, must decide for the guidance and direction of all subordinate officers and people; and from their decision there is no appeal, for that is the end of law under our government. Not that they are above the law, for they are bound by their oaths to conform to * Manual of the Constitution of the United States of America. By TIMOTHY FARRAR, LL.D. Third Edition, revised. With an Appendix. Boston: Little, Brown & Company. 1872. it. But if it is allowable to suppose that they may violate their oaths, there is no legal remedy. Nihil est preterea quo confugere possumus," (p. 526). The mode which he suggests of obtaining the judgment of this High Court on the constitutionality of laws, is by impeachments (which must originate in the House of Representatives and be tried by the Senate) of all government officers and judges who impede, obstruct, or misapply the laws which Congress, by passing them, has determined to be constitutional. "Those who accept the responsibility of understanding, executing, and adminis tering the law, are bound to know its meaning and to execute it right under such penalty as the High Court of Impeachment may award for the omission or violation of that duty. Suitable indulgence should no doubt be allowed to honest error, as in other cases; but any disposition to prevent, evade, or misinterpret the law by officers or individuals whose duty it is to obey, execute, and administer, ought by no means to be tolerated or suffered. Impeachment is the regular, wise, and constitutional remedy against this class of abuses. It should not be held as an extreme measure to be resorted to only on great and extraordinary occasions which may defy all remedy; but should be used and enforced as a constant reminder to all classes of ministerial and administrative officers of their direct responsibleness to, the representatives of the people as well as to the people themselves," p. 531. These are certainly radical views, and we can hardly say that we are prepared to accept them in all their length and breadth; but they are forcibly presented, and are worthy of consideration as one solution of the very serious question whether any judicial tribunal exists, with authority higher than that of Congress itself, to pass upon the constitutionality of laws. But we greatly doubt the philosophy or wisdom of looking to Congress in a judical capacity to revise the proceedings of Congress in a legislative capacity-in other words, of appealing from Philip drunk to Philip sober. We can more readily concur with Judge Farrar's remarks upon the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, which he regards as "terminating in a failure of justice," and respecting which he justly says. "The small minority of both houses who refused to execute the law because they did not like it, and the still smaller portion of the Senate who failed to execute it, though they did like it, and voted for it, have both failed to command the approbation of the country for the soundness of the principles on which they acted, or to enable the people to feel the safety and expediency of allowing the execution of the law, while remaining in force, to depend on any opinion that may be formed of the wisdom or necessity of its enactment," (p. 544). But does not this "failure of justice in the High Court of Impeachment," and the causes of it, throw a shade of doubt upon the reliability of this tribunal as a means of determining judicially and finally controverted questions of constitutional construction? We are inclined to think that other cases might be found in our history where the judgment of Congress upon constitutional questions "failed to command the approbation of the country, for the soundness of the principles on which they acted." PROF. HADLEY'S ESSAYS.*-The promptness with which the public have been presented with this beautiful volume of selections from the philological and critical contributions which were made by the late Prof. James Hadley to the various Magazines and Reviews of the country, is quite noteworthy. It has been edited by his friend, Prof. W. D. Whitney, who says, in the preface: "In extent and accuracy of knowledge, in retentiveness and readiness of memory, in penetration and justness of judgment, I have never met his equal. Whatever others may have done, he was, in the opinion of all who knew him most fully, America's best and soundest philologist, and his death, in the maturity and highest activity of his powers, is a national calamity, a calamity to the world of scholars. Especially painful and irreparable to me has been the loss of a fellow student to whom I have for twenty-three years looked up to as a teacher, colleague, and friend, whose counsel and sympathy I had so long enjoyed, and the purity and elevation of whose character had been to me a model of human excellence; and I have found it a sad pleasure to assist his family in arranging and publishing this memorial of his high and varied scholarship." THE "SPIRITUAL" DELUSION.f-We have come to this work with no previous knowledge of the author, not having seen the earlier volume named on the title page, and without high expectations, since the subject has been so often unsatisfactorily handled whether on the one side or the other. But we are favorably impressed with its merit and utility. It is written with care and candor, and shows an intimate acquaintance with the system (if such it may be called) under consideration. Indeed, the author ac. knowledges himself to have been formerly a believer in the reality * Essays, Philological and Critical, selected from the papers of James Hadley, LL.D, Professor of Greek in Yale College. New York: Holt & Williams. 1873. 8vo, pp. 424. + The "Spiritual" Delusion; its Methods, Teachings, and Effects. The Philosophy and Phenomena critically examined. By DYER D. LUM, author of "the Early Social Life of Man." Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1873. 12mo, pp. 252. of intercourse with departed spirits through the means employed by the spiritualists of our day, and writes in the hope "that a statement of the reasons which have led him out of this treacherous quicksand to healthful moral action may be of service to many not as yet lost to all appeals to reason and common sense." The words "spiritualism" and "spiritual" having been before otherwise and more reputably appropriated, in common with other recent opponents of the doctrine, he uses in their place "spiritism and "spirital," which, however justifiable the purpose, have some savor of barbarism, though they may be not therefore the less applicable to the thing. The matter is distributed under the heads of "the Philosophy" and "the Phenomena;" the first in successive chapters, treating of "Modern Spiritism" as unscientific in its methods, "unphilosophical in its teachings," and “unnatural in its effects;" the second, of "mental exaltation," "obsession" (the new coinage of "spiritists"), "unconscious action of the brain," "what phenomena occur?" and "physical manifestations." The distinction, and, as we think, the merit and effectiveness of his work, lie in this, that it is not a "wholesale" denial nor ignoring of the marvels alleged under the name of spiritual phenomena, nor so much as an attempt to explain them all; for while some are referable to trickery and others admit of a scientific solution properly so called, still others (and not a few) are too well attested to be questioned, and remain marvels, that is, are not yet reducible under known natural laws; but these again are claimed to be not new in kind, but rather classed with phenomena before noted by Abercrombie and other writers. The phenomena of somnambulism and clairvoyance, the preternatural exaltation of memory, imagination and other faculties, the power of one mind over another without known means of communication, the knowledge as by vision of events distant or future, as in the Scotch "second sight," these things and the like, as far as they are attested, are not the property of the "spiritists," but belong as well to other observers and other times, nor do they warrant the doctrine now so confidently vaunted, the action of departed spirits on the minds of the living. It is this inference that the author denies, and he argues well that the inexplicableness of a fact is not alone a sufficient reason for referring it to disembodied spirits as a cause. Such an explanation must show a reasonableness for itself besides the absence of any other. Such is Mr. Lum's position, and we have long felt it to be the strongest against the assumptions of the "spiritists." In what he modestly calls "Hints toward a so lution," concluding the last chapter on "Physical Manifestations," he says: "I have not sought to advocate any specific theory with which all the phenomena will be found to accord; on the contrary, the psychological facts underlying the spiritual philosophy are various in their causes, and, while some may be classified as instances of mental exaltation or unconcious activity of the mind, others are explicable on the ground of mental sympathy, or seem to be the result oftentimes of a force proceeding from the nervous system of one or more individuals, and operating in a manner as yet not clearly defined. To give reasons for believing that the spirits of the dead are not concerned in any of these various phenomena has been the object of the foregoing pages." Even so far as he here indicates and elsewhere attempts explanations, they seem to us often scarcely more than a classification, with the alleged "spirital" phenomena, of other phenomena in themselves not less marvelous; and when he cites accounts of the breaking of mirrors and crockery in the presence of a maid-servant who yet does not touch them, the suggestion of electricity as a power with which she is unconsciously charged to so wonderful a degree, and which thus acts so wonderfully, is hardly less improbable than the conclusions of the spiritists. In the main, however, he reasons soberly, and we commend his method of counteracting the "spiritism" of the times to those persons who have no better argument against it than a sweeping denial of all the phenomena it alleges as a mass of imposture or delusion. We protest the more strenuously against such denials of whatever is inexplicable now, because such opponents, even when arguing in the interest of Christianity, unconciously use weapons that might be as well turned against the "signs and wonders" of the New Testament. The distinctive religious bearings of the subject the author does not treat of further than to avow his belief in immortality. Yet this is one of its most interesting and important aspects. His style is generally unexceptionable, but he has not kept clear of the Amer icanism, "our midst " (p. 20). MODERN MAGIC.*-The extent and complexion of the subjects treated in this book may be learned from the titles of the ten chapters-Witchcraft, Black and White Magic, Dreams, Visions, Ghosts, Divination, Possession, Magnetism, Miraculous Cures, and Magnetism. Under these heads (which seem to us not always *Modern Magic. By M. SCHELE DE VERE. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1873. pp. 466. |